What Is Alzheimer's Disease?
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disorder of the brain. It impacts memory, cognition, thinking, and behavior. It's most common in older adults over the age of 65. While Alzheimer's is not a normal part of aging, age is the biggest risk factor for developing the disease.
Medication and other types of treatment can help manage the disease and slow its progression. The emphasis of many treatment plans is to improve quality of life and maintain independence. The most common early symptom of Alzheimer's is difficulty remembering newly learned information. Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60-80% of dementia cases.
Why Recognizing Early Symptoms is Important
Early recognition of Alzheimer's signs is important as it gives families time to make informed decisions about care, finances, and legal matters while the person can still engage in decision-making. Timely diagnosis can improve quality of life, offer access to treatments that may slow disease progression, and support better care planning for individuals and their loved ones.
Common Early Symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia
- Challenges in understanding visual images or spatial relationships
- Problems with words in speaking or writing
- Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps
- Decreased or poor judgment
- Withdrawal from work or social activities
- Changes in mood or personality (for example, confusion, suspicion, anxiety, or depression)
- Memory loss that disrupts daily life (especially forgetting recently learned information)
- Difficulty planning or solving problems
- Trouble completing familiar tasks at home or work
- Confusion with time or place
Alzheimer's Disease Worsens Over Time
Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, meaning that it worsens over time. Dementia symptoms, such as memory loss, reduced recognition, and trouble completing familiar tasks, gradually worsen over a number of years. In its early stages, memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer's, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment.
On average, a person with Alzheimer's lives four to eight years after diagnosis. Depending on a variety of factors, some individuals live as long as 20 years after an initial Alzheimer's diagnosis.
BayView: Southern California Senior Assisted Living
At Bay View Assisted Living, we strive to provide compassionate, individualized care, preserving our residents' dignity at every stage of their Alzheimer's journey. We're committed to holistic care that engages our residents on emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical levels.
Safe and Secure Senior Living Community with Hospice Accommodations
At BayView, we promote safety with a secured perimeter environment and trained staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our beautiful assisted living home and surrounding grounds are equipped with surveillance cameras in all public and outdoor spaces. Our home and spacious grounds meet all ADA requirements including wide hallways, safety rails, shower chairs, and no lips or gaps at doorways. This allows for easy wheelchair and walker access, increasing ease of mobility for residents.
San Diego's Top Memory Care and Senior Care Community
BayView Senior Assisted Living in Point Loma, California, is one of the top assisted living facilities in the greater San Diego area. We're known for our compassionate caregivers, beautiful grounds, and personalized, individualized care. We consider it an honor to walk alongside families as they traverse the challenging and heartbreaking journey of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. We understand that our residents' holistic experience of life (social, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical) is incredibly important. Our compassionate caregivers provide top-notch, individualized care to each of the members of our memory care communities.
